Just a thought on Bill's excellent advice above. If you remember me saying this before, actually I don't apologize. It is important.
When we bought our first home about 15 years ago, I bought home owner's insurance. 'Sposed to, right? I had never done it before. When the agent asked how much I wanted in personal property coverage, I gave it some thought. We had a lot of possessions; furniture, appliances, clothing. I sure had some camera equipment. Little of it was new. Still, when I let him talk me into $50K for the value I was sort of uncomfortable. After all, none of it was new, right?
Well, first make sure your policy is for replacement value. Most are, but be sure. Figure out what you think is the repacement value and at least double it. Sound like an invitation to an insurance fraud investigation? Here's what happened to me.
We went to church one morning and were going to another that afternoon. We decided to stop by our house for some warmer clothing as there was to be an outdoor cookout (wintertime). We found a lot of fire equipment in front of our house. Although the house was deemed repairable, we were luckily allowed to tear it down to the foundation and rebuild, since it would cost a little bit less than to repair.
Now to our personal property. Ever try to replace mother of pearl Korean furniture in the US? No fun. Over how many years have you been buying clothing and furniture that is still quite serviceale and you in fact use? Try coming home one day and finding it all has to be replaced. My personal experience is that the burned smoke smell doesn't come out of clothing easily, even if it wasn't burned too badly to be saved as most of ours was. How about your home furnisings; photos, rugs, etc.
Point being, all of a sudden, all that which had been collected over the years sudenly all had to be replaced at one time. Inflation will change the replacement cost! New fashions will cause increases. Don't be like me. Be sure you are covered. If you are too high in your estimate, you just won't use it all. No fraud there.
I lost camera equipment and books. Oh, I forgot about those. Very difficult and expensive to replace. Fortunately some of my camera gear was in my car.
As to eletronic gear, insureance companies don't even try to clean it up. The acids in smoke cause problems over time. They would rather just replace up front. My experience is the it is a toss up. Some will survive, some won't. Some will clean up on the outside, some won't.
Sorry for the long post. But it can happen. Insureance is a gamble. We are betting something will go wrong, they are betting it won't. We need to win if it goes wrong.
